Petshark: Talking Stick

A lot of teams have been having trouble stringing wins together lately. Two in a row against playoff teams is very nice for the Sharks and their fans. The press does three stars for the game, so tried my hand at three stars for each period of the St. Patrick’s Day game.

David Pollak ‏ @PollakOnSharks: “Nah, same old same old. RT @markedwinemmons So, now that I’m off Warriors’ deadline, were there Sharks doing anything interesting tonight?”

First Period:

Third star of the first: Pavel Datsyuk for the Red Wings’ first goal of the game. If someone else made that shot, he’d be first star of the game. Since it’s Datsyuk, he’d have to make the shot through a wall of fire to be really surprising. He would also have to cause the wall of fire appear without a bunch of equipment or no one would be surprised to see a wall of fire on the ice.

Second star of the first: Martin Havlat for scoring in his second game back and for scoring the second goal of the game, which the Sharks have not always done when they score the first so quickly.

First star of the first: Tomas Holmstrom for funniest penalty. The puck was long gone and play headed out of the zone when Holmstrom decided that whacking Niemi’s stick out of his hands would be a good idea. The man’s a laugh riot.

Second period:

Third star of the second: Valtteri Filppula for a most selfless penalty. He knows that jerseys are not meant to be tucked in, back or front, and was trying to fix Havlat’s when he was accused of holding.

Second star of the second: Ferriero playing with uncommon grit. For a guy not cut out for the fourth line, he seems to be getting the hang of it.

First star of the second: Daniel Winnick for a great job killing time during the penalty kill, all over the Wings’ zone. Haven’t seen many Sharks do so much cruising through traffic with the puck during a penalty kill. I thought that was Thornton’s trick.

Third period:

Third star of the third: Dustin Penner for scoring a go ahead goal in LA to make the the third period in San Jose all the more nerve-wracking.

Second star of the third: Drew Remenda for saying players now have to “burrow” to get pucks. That’s a picture I will not be able to get out of my head any time soon.

First star of the third: Head coaches Todd McLellan and Mike Babcock for orchestrating consistently entertaining games.

OT

Third star of OT: Niemi, best miming of “do I have it?” Looked like a cat checking to see if the puck would jump up and run away again if he lifted his glove for a second.

Second star of OT: Justin Braun for being so slippery that after he was pushed into Howard he got out of the way, leaving Abdelkader on top if his own goalie.

First star of OT: Justin Abdelkader for best Scott Hartnell-style goalie pin. I’m sure Jimmy Howard will be able to laugh about that eventually.

Post-game:

Third star of post-game: Todd McLellan, for telling us the team isn’t going to tell us when players are injured anymore.

Second star of post-game: Marc-Edouard Vlasic for his animated “no comment” regarding the non-call that preceded Detroit’s tying goal.

First star of post-game: Joe Thornton for admitting he was surprised by Havlat’s play in his first games back while a lot of others tried no say “Nah, we aren’t surprised, we know he’s awesome.”

“He’s a very dynamic, top-end forward,” captain Joe Thornton said. “I didn’t think he’d make this much of an impact in two games, but he just looks fabulous out there.” -Mercury News

Extra credit for use of the word “fabulous.”

Game garters:

One star and garter: Ryane Clowe. Just because and also I don’t see him win races to beat icing very often.

Two stars and garters: Joe Pavelski for looking very cross that he couldn’t score a second goal even though his stick was nearly tied up and someone was in his way and it was a long shot at best. This is the attitude the Sharks need to maintain: no excuses, all compete.

Three stars and garters: Sharks defensive corps for working their tails off and bouncing back quickly from mistakes and insulting non-calls.

As always, great game between these teams, so much easier to appreciate when the right team wins.

About Petshark: Talking Stick

Native of Northern California. Hockey fan since 1998... sort of... there's a hiatus in there that I still can't explain.

I want to know about anything and everything related to the sport and the spectacle. I watch, I react, I write it down.

My interest in the Sharks was initially a matter of geographic convenience and regional loyalty because that seemed to be how it worked. I had no prior interest (at all-- AT ALL) in professional sports of any kind. When I met hockey, it might have set off a chain reaction of general sports fandom. It hasn't, I don't think it will. At all.

Since then, that interest developed into full blown (mostly sort of usually almost completely) exclusive loyalty to the Sharks.

I started blogging a couple years ago on wordpress. I still occasionally put things there that I don't think fit here because they are not about the Sharks. Wherever my words wander, here on Kuklas Korner, they will (usually) hang on to a teal thread.

I can be found in cyberspace on Twitter @petshark47, or emailed at talkingstick@petshark.net